Free Friday

I stole this picture off Facebook, so that you may appreciate just how involved this job is, sometimes. The bonus of costumes: You can't really be recognized. The downside: You're in a dumb costume.

Ah well.

Today, in a meeting, we were told that we have Friday off, since there was no work for us to do. Whee - A surprise long-weekend ain't something i'll ever complain about. No plans as of yet, but we'll see... i'm sure something will pop up.

I had an interesting conversation in my Freespeaking class on Tuesday, regarding the Education system in Korea. There's a perception from the general public that the Public School system is inadequate, which is why private education (including English schools like GEC) is so popular. Most parents feel that for their child to be able to compete, they have to attend a number of after-school classes, or else they won't have a prayer.

What that means for kids, unfortunately, is that the bulk of them are in school extremely late. After school ends, they go from private-school to private-school, one for each different subject. The government is talking about implementing a curfew of 10pm for elementary-level private schools, because many of them go well-beyond that time (as late as 1am, apparently).

This is all for elementary-kids. Oh - and those same kids also go to school on Saturdays.

My opinion is that over here, Society has pushed itself to compete so hard, that everyone has to do insane amounts of work to be considered 'above average'. The mentality is 'If the neighbor's kids are doing it, my kids have to do it harder' - and that way, the entire neighborhood just ends up constantly raising the bar - over and over. If people stopped constantly pushing, then that 'high standard' could be a bit lower, and allow kids to just get a break.. and be kids.

It's a pretty vicious circle.

There are many things I admire about Korean culture, but this is one aspect that I hope never gets exported into North America. Kids should be able to have fun, every now and again.

Cheers.